Societal Well-Being

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Reinventing Healthy Communities:

Implications for Individual and

Societal Well-Being

Jerry D. Marx

^{Edited by}

$

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social sciences

Printed Edition of the Special Issue Published in Social Sciences

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Jerry D. Marx (Ed.)

Reinventing Healthy

Communities: Implications

for Individual and Societal

Well-Being

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This book is a reprint of the Special Issue that appeared in the online, open access journal, Social Sciences (ISSN 2076-0760) from 2015–2016, available at:

http://www.mdpi.com/journal/socsci/special_issues/reinventing_realthy_

communities

Guest Editor Jerry D. Marx

Department of Social Work, University of New Hampshire USA

Editorial Office MDPI AG

St. Alban-Anlage 66 Basel, Switzerland Publisher

Shu-Kun Lin Assistant Editor Siyang Liu

1. Edition 2016

MDPI • Basel • Beijing • Wuhan • Barcelona • Belgrade ISBN 978-3-03842-262-4 (Hbk)

ISBN 978-3-03842-263-1 (PDF)

Articles in this volume are Open Access and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY), which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. The book taken as a whole is © 2016 MDPI, Basel, Switzerland, distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons by Attribution (CC BY-NC-ND)

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III

List of Contributors

Tabia Akintobi Prevention Research Center, and Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine, 720 Westview Drive, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA.

Allyson Belton Satcher Health Leadership Institute, Morehouse School of Medicine, 720 Westview Drive, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA.

Angèle Bilodeau School of Public Health, University of Montreal, PO Box 6128 Station Centre-ville, Montreal, QC H3C 3J7, Canada.

Starla Blanks Satcher Health Leadership Institute, Morehouse School of Medicine, 720 Westview Drive, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA.

Kristy Buccieri Department of Sociology, Trent University, 1600 W Bank Dr, Peterborough, ON K9J 0G2, Canada.

Vernon B. Carter Department of Social Work, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA.

Kay Cutler Department of Teaching, Learning & Leadership, South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD 57007, USA.

Nadia Giguère Jeanne-Mance Health and Social Services Center Research Center, 1250 Sanguinet Street, Suite 477, Montreal, QC H2X 3E7, Canada.

Kisha Holden Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine, Satcher Health Leadership Institute, and Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Science, Morehouse School of Medicine, 720 Westview Drive, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA.

Jammie Hopkins Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine, and Satcher Health Leadership Institute, Morehouse School of Medicine, 720 Westview Drive, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA.

Bonnie Jeffery Faculty of Social Work, Saskatchewan Population Health and Evaluation Research Unit, University of Regina, Prince Albert Campus, Saskatchewan S6V 7S3, Canada.

Shanthi Johnson Faculty of Kinesiology and Health Studies, Saskatchewan Population Health and Evaluation Research Unit, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan S4S 0A2, Canada.

Isabelle Laurin Montreal Department of Public Health, 1301 Sherbrooke East, Montreal, QC H2L 1M3, Canada.

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VI

Jerry D. Marx Department of Social Work, University of New Hampshire, Hood House, 89 Main St., Durham, NH 03824, USA.

Brian McGregor Satcher Health Leadership Institute, and Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Science, Morehouse School of Medicine, 720 Westview Drive, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA.

Angela McKillip School of Design, South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD 57007, USA.

Mary Moeller Department of Teaching, Learning & Leadership, South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD 57007, USA.

Nazeem Muhajarine Community Health and Epidemiology, Saskatchewan Population Health and Evaluation Research Unit, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5E5, Canada.

Louise Potvin School of Public Health, University of Montreal, PO Box 6128 Station Centre-ville, Montreal, QC H3C 3J7, Canada.

Ahmed Shoukry Rashad Department of Economics, Faculty of Commerce, Damanhour University, Damanhour 22514, Egypt.

Alison Rataj Department of Social Work, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA.

Rachel Robinson School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia.

Mark Roseland Centre for Sustainable Community Development, School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada.

Mesbah Fathy Sharaf Department of Economics, Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2H4, Canada; Department of Economics, Faculty of Commerce, Damanhour University, Damanhour 22514, Egypt.

Maria Spiliotopoulou Centre for Sustainable Community Development, School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada.

Ruth Wienk Sociology Department, South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD 57007, USA.

Hazel Williams-Roberts Community Health and Epidemiology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5E5, Canada.

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VII

Glenda Wrenn Satcher Health Leadership Institute, and Department of Psychiatry

& Behavioral Science, Morehouse School of Medicine, 720 Westview Drive, Atlanta, GA 30310, USA.

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About the Guest Editor

Jerry D. Marx, Ph.D., is a tenured, Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work at the University of New Hampshire (U.N.H.). He also currently serves as the Faculty Director of the University of New Hampshire Honors Program. Dr. Marx’s research focuses on social policy and administration with an emphasis on community-based nonprofit organizations. He has published journal articles on such topics as human service volunteerism and the charitable giving patterns of corporations, women, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans.

Marx’s scholarship resulted in a college research award in 1999 and an invitation to the first White House Conference on Philanthropy in 1999. His textbooks are “Social Work and Social Welfare: An Introduction,” co-authored by Anne Broussard, Fleur Hopper, and Dave Worster and published by Pearson (2011) as well as “Social Welfare: The American Partnership,” published by Allyn & Bacon in 2004. Before earning his Ph.D., he served for eight years in executive leadership positions in the nonprofit sector.

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Healthy Communities: What Have We Learned and Where do We Go from Here?

Jerry D. Marx

Reprinted from Soc. Sci. Cite as: Marx, J.D. Healthy Communities: What Have We Learned and Where do We Go from Here? Soc. Sci. 2016, 5, 44.

Systems theory [1,2] suggests that healthy communities promote healthy individual development. That is, healthy systems take care of their component parts, and they do this, in part, by conducting positive exchanges with external systems.

However, the thinking on what characterizes a “healthy” community continues to change over time. Social exchange theory [3] emphasizes the norms of reciprocity and the underlying relationships of trust that develop in healthy communities. Other authors stress the need for various forms of capital, not only economic and political, but also social, environmental, cultural, and spiritual [4,5].

Contemporary theory underlying the trend towards “New Urbanism” [6] has its roots in the writings of Jane Jacobs [7]. Jacobs, a U.S. citizen, challenged the prevailing notions of urban planning in the United States, claiming that urban renewal of the 1940s and 1950s had hurt the health of cities due to single use zoning that located residents, parks, business, government services, etc. in separate sections of the city.

This tended to leave these areas unused for extended periods of each day, thus isolating various groups and uses. She further insisted that high rise towers and open plazas created wind swept areas with little appeal to pedestrians, who preferred denser neighborhoods with short blocks and buildings of moderate height.

Consequently, contemporary views of “livable communities” maintain that density and diversity are good for the health of cities. Healthy communities are more pedestrian-friendly and less automobile-centric. Mixed-use zoning keeps a flow of people through streets, neighborhoods, and districts, which is good for business, safety, and tourism. Locally-sourced food is more sustainable for the environment and healthier for individuals [7–9].

But how does this all relate to the current and future provision of social services? And how should social institutions collaborate with those of the economic and political sectors to maximize individual and societal well-being? Those involved with the settlement house movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s in Great Britain and the United States certainly understood the impact of the environment on individual functioning and worked with both government and business leaders to better organize communities and services to meet the needs of residents. Deinstitutionalization and the movement toward community-based social

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services in the U.S. in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s recognized the potential positive influence of healthy communities on individual functioning [10,11].

This special collection, therefore, aims to focus on the contextual factors that characterize “healthy communities” and that impact individual development and well being around the world. Researchers from various fields including psychiatry, public health, sociology, political science, community planning, economics, kinesiology, and social work present their theoretical, empirical, or practice-based studies on critical issues involving healthy communities.

To begin, Roseland and Spiliotopoulou provide a historical overview of urban sustainability theory and practice, and explain why urban sustainability planning and development currently face limited and inconsistent application [12]. The authors argue that urban sustainability today needs “to embrace equity, inclusion, and other social considerations; encourage the integration of human and environmental health interests; and encompass triple-bottom-line-inspired outcomes.” The authors, therefore, encourage a broad perspective on healthy communities that emphasizes social, financial as well as environmental goals.

Marx and Rataj in the second paper in this collection present a case study that illustrates this growing public concern for a broader paradigm in urban planning and community development [13]. The case study documents a successful community organizing effort to promote a more livable neighborhood in Portland, Maine (USA).

In opposing a development project that had been endorsed by the city government, community activists stressed the importance of social and environmental factors impacting community health and livability. Implications for healthy communities, community activists, and social work educators are discussed.

Robinson provides a more theoretical paper on the topic of healthy communities [14].

That is, the author explores the relevance of “hybridity” for the “Kids in Communities”

study—an Australian research project examining community influences on child development across multiple case study sites in that country.

Moeller, McKillip, Wienk, and Cutler also see children and families as central to sustaining healthy communities [15]. The authors provide a case study of one rural community in the U.S. that used an inquiry-based approach to address the question,

“How can we engage our citizens to improve child and family well-being in our community?” Their paper describes the formation of a “community of practice,” its growing links to community agencies, and its initial efforts to develop calls to action through participatory research and grassroots activism.

Holden et al. agree with Roseland and Spiliotopoulou that community health is a matter of equity and human rights [16]. They argue that addressing the complex health and well-being needs of ethnically and culturally diverse communities requires creative strategies to reduce risk factors and bolster protective factors. To this end, the authors examine strategic efforts to improve individual longevity

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and quality of life through accessible primary care, focused community-based programs, multi-disciplinary clinical and translational research, and effective health policy advocacy.

Buccieri contributes to this collection on reinventing healthy communities by providing a case study on planning for social housing and health care in Ontario, Canada [17]. Homelessness is a multi-dimensional social problem that requires a coordinated systems approach. In recent years, Canada has attempted to integrate health care and social care to better address the needs of homeless persons. This article documents the way in which planners for social housing and health care collaborated to align their system approaches for homeless persons.

The Great Recession created homelessness and other forms of hardship for vulnerable people in communities throughout the world. Although African Americans are generally especially hard hit by these types of economic crises, they have a long and distinctive history of community volunteerism and mutual assistance.

Consequently, Carter and Marx examined African American volunteering in non-profit organizations in the aftermath of the 2008–2009 recession [18]. Specifically, the researchers use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to analyze U.S. volunteering in four categories of organizations: poverty organizations, senior service agencies, social action groups, and religious affiliated organizations. All of these organizations are part of social capital, and therefore, help to sustain healthy communities. The authors’ secondary analysis produced significant findings regarding volunteerism among African Americans in these community-based organizations.

Like the Robinson study and the research by Moeller et al., Laurin, Bilodeau, Giguere, and Potvin address the topic of healthy communities from the perspective of child development. In this study, the researchers examined the decision-making process that fostered ownership of the results of the 2006 “Survey of the School Readiness of Montreal Children” [19]. Their analysis documents the impacts of those survey findings on intersectoral action regarding early childhood services. An important outcome has been closer collaboration between early childhood services and school systems. This includes the development of both transition-to-kindergarten tools and literacy activities. The authors discuss the implications for future community planning.

Rashad and Sharaf, like other authors in this collection, stress the importance of equity to the health of communities and society at large [20]. The findings of their quantitative study in Egypt reject the hypothesis that health care subsidies mostly benefit the poor. Consequently, the researchers conclude that future poverty reduction and healthcare reform efforts in Egypt should not only expand healthcare coverage, but also on improve the equity of its distribution for poor citizens.

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In the final paper, Williams-Roberts, Jeffery, Johnson, and Muhajarine maintain that the concept of healthy communities actually involves a diverse set of strategies, making evaluation of health outcomes related to individual approaches critically important to sustaining such efforts [21]. Their systematic review analyzes the effectiveness in this regard of the ten most common healthy community approaches:

Healthy Cities/Communities, Smart Growth, Child Friendly Cities, Safe Routes to Schools, Safe Communities, Active Living Communities, Livable Communities, Social Cities, Age-Friendly Cities, and Dementia Friendly Cities. Implications for future evaluative research are considered.

Conflicts of Interest:The author declares no conflict of interest.

References

1. Ludwig von Bertalanffy. General Systems Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications.

New York: George Braziller, 1968.

2. Urie Bronfenbrenner. The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979.

3. Peter M. Blau. Exchange & Power in Social Life. New York: Wiley, 1964.

4. Robert D. Putnam. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.

New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000.

5. Mark Roseland. Toward Sustainable Communities. Gabriola Island: New Society, 2012.

6. New Urbanism. “Principles of Urbanism.” Available online: http://www.newurbanism.

org/newurbanism/principles.html (accessed on 24 August 2016).

7. Jane Jacobs. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House, 1961.

8. David Owen. Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability. New York: Penguin Books, 2009.

9. Edward Glaeser. Triumph of the City. New York: Penguin, 2011.

10. Bruce Jansson. The Reluctant Welfare State: Engaging History to Advance Social Work Practice in Contemporary Society, 7th ed. Pacific Grove: Brooks Cole, 2011.

11. Jerry D. Marx. Social Welfare: The American Partnership. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2004.

12. Mark Roseland, and Maria Spiliotopoulou. “Converging Urban Agendas: Toward Healthy and Sustainable Communities.” Social Sciences 5 (2016): 28.

13. Jerry D. Marx, and Alison Rataj. “A Case Study in Organizing for Livable and Sustainable Communities.” Social Sciences 5 (2015): 1.

14. Rachel Robinson. “Hybridity: A Theory of Agency in Early Childhood Governance.”

Social Sciences 5 (2016): 9.

15. Mary Moeller, Angela McKillip, Ruth Wienk, and Kay Cutler. “In Pursuit of Child and Family Well-Being: Initial Steps to Advocacy.” Social Sciences 5 (2016): 30.

16. Kisha Holden, Tabia Akintobi, Jammie Hopkins, Allyson Belton, Brian McGregor, Starla Blanks, and Glenda Wrenn. “Community Engaged Leadership to Advance Health Equity and Build Healthier Communities.” Social Sciences 5 (2015): 2.

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17. Kristy Buccieri. “Integrated Social Housing and Health Care for Homeless and Marginally-Housed Individuals: A Study of the Housing and Homelessness Steering Committee in Ontario, Canada.” Social Sciences 5 (2016): 15.

18. Vernon B. Carter, and Jerry D. Marx. “US Volunteering in the Aftermath of the Great Recession: Were African Americans a Significant Factor? ” Social Sciences 5 (2016): 22.

19. Isabelle Laurin, Angèle Bilodeau, Nadia Giguère, and Louise Potvin. “Intersectoral Mobilization in Child Development: An Outcome Assessment of the Survey of the School Readiness of Montreal Children.” Social Sciences 4 (2015): 1316–34.

20. Ahmed Shoukry Rashad, and Mesbah Fathy Sharaf. “Who Benefits from Public Healthcare Subsidies in Egypt? ” Social Sciences 4 (2015): 1162–76.

21. Hazel Williams-Roberts, Bonnie Jeffery, Shanthi Johnson, and Nazeem Muhajarine.

“The Effectiveness of Healthy Community Approaches on Positive Health Outcomes in Canada and the United States.” Social Sciences 5 (2015): 3.

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Converging Urban Agendas: Toward Healthy and Sustainable Communities

Mark Roseland and Maria Spiliotopoulou

Abstract:In light of recent developments such as the COP21 Paris climate agreement, the UN adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, and the Habitat III Conference, there is increasing recognition of the role of human settlements as key components of both global challenges and global solutions. “Urban sustainability”

under various names has matured over the last three decades not only in planning and related fields, but also in wider professional and popular discourse. In this paper we trace a historical overview of urban sustainability theory and practice, and explain why urban sustainability planning and development currently face limited and inconsistent application. We show that this lack of public uptake is due in part to monitoring, assessment, and decision-support frameworks and tools that do not engage citizens and their governments in a shared “strong sustainability”

analysis and/or vision. We argue that urban sustainability today clearly needs to embrace equity, inclusion, and other social considerations; contribute to constructive societal mobilisation and compelling policy-making; advocate for development as a better alternative to growth; encourage the integration of human and environmental health interests; and encompass triple-bottom-line-inspired outcomes. Focusing on community capital productivity and regeneration may be the key to advancing healthy and sustainable communities.

Reprinted from Soc. Sci. Cite as: Roseland, M.; Spiliotopoulou, M. Converging Urban Agendas: Toward Healthy and Sustainable Communities. Soc. Sci. 2016, 5, 28.

1. Introduction

A growing number of scholars are referring to the modern period as “the Anthropocene”, the era when human development is unfolding at a pace that is detrimental for our host planet [1]. A multitude of signs clearly indicate that the Earth cannot sustain the ever-growing human population; these signs include climate change and increased frequency of extreme phenomena; persistent poverty and inaccessibility to basic provisions like clean water and sanitation; and degradation of ecosystem services and species extinction at an unprecedented rate [2].

The argument that there should be limits to growth was established decades ago in the seminal report submitted by Meadows et al. to the Club of Rome [3], and it is finally gaining momentum [4,5]. We no longer live in an “empty world”, but rather in a “full” one [6], with significant implications and repercussions for current

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and future generations. Current generations now have both the knowledge and the responsibility to lead humanity toward a more sustainable future [2].

In some cases the situation may not be irreversible; however, we now have more understanding of where the planetary boundaries are and, although some suggested thresholds seem to have been exceeded (genetic diversity, climate change, nitrogen cycle, and land-system change) [7], we need to make concerted efforts to remain within these interconnected boundaries [8]. According to current knowledge the Holocene is the only state of the Earth that can support human societies as we know them; human activity however has been extending the Earth’s boundaries to the point that the planet as a system may lose it resilience, i.e., it may not be able to sustain the increasing anthropogenic pressure [7].

In light of recent developments such as the COP21 climate agreement, UN adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030, and the Habitat III Conference, there is increasing recognition of the role of human settlements as key components of both global challenges and also global solutions. Urban sustainability or Sustainable Community Development (SCD) is a holistic approach that integrates social, environmental, and economic considerations into the processes and actions undertaken by communities on their path toward sustainability. It entails progress in all forms of community capital: natural, physical, economic, human, social, and cultural [9]. For this paper we use the terms SCD and urban sustainability interchangeably.

We present an overview of the theories that have influenced urban sustainability theory and practice over time (Sections 2 and 3), and suggest a convergence of urban sustainability agendas with strong potential to contribute to healthy and sustainable communities (Section 4).

2. Historical and Conceptual Overview

The term “sustainable development” (SD) has been criticised as ambiguous and open to contradictory interpretations [10]; in the literature, it is more often referred to as the process, the effort, and activities leading to the end goal of sustainability [11]. “Development” should not be confused with “growth”; while quantitative increases (e.g., in income, population, production, and size) are aptly described as “growth”, qualitative changes (e.g., in health, knowledge, quality of life, walkability, and efficient resource use) are more accurately described as

“development” [9]. Moreover, sustainable development should not be conceived of as a trade-off between the environment and the economy, since protecting ecosystems and developing sustainably need not mean job loss or economic downturn. It is about a new way of thinking about economic development over the long term: it is about “doing development differently” [9].

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In a study of several definitions of sustainability, Berke and Conroy [12]

identified four common characteristics: (1) “balance” in integrating environmental, economic, and social aspects; (2) the potential of a system to regenerate (recreate and strengthen itself); (3) the recognition that local systems are part of a global system;

and (4) the dynamic and ever-evolving nature of SD. They went on to describe SD as

“a dynamic process in which communities anticipate and accommodate the needs of current and future generations in ways that reproduce and balance local social, economic, and ecological systems, and link local actions to global concerns” [12].

In this section we follow the progression from the “big picture” of global sustainability and the UN Sustainable Development Goals to local sustainability and Goal 11 on inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities. We highlight the importance of local communities in dealing with global sustainability issues and trace the underpinnings of sustainable development theory and practice, as these form the conceptual background of sustainable community development.

2.1. Global Developments

The principal global sustainability challenges in the 21st century, i.e., ecological integrity, social equity and cohesion, and economic prosperity, need to be addressed in an integrated way [9,13]. At the time of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Rio Earth Summit, 1992), we were witnessing the dawn of more mainstream public awareness about environmental issues, also evident in the adoption of the Agenda 21, a sustainable development action plan for the 21st century [9]. Then, the ingredients for change included awareness and some level of political engagement and environmental initiatives, but not the technical capacity, social understanding, and political will for meaningful, structural change [14]. By the time of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, there was an increasing sense of crisis, as knowledge about the state of environmental systems showed a continued negative trend and need for urgent action [14].

In April 1987, the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway, released its much-heralded report, “Our Common Future” [9]. The Brundtland Commission Report showed that the poorest fifth of the world’s population had less than two percent of the world’s economic product while the richest fifth had 75 percent;

and that the 26 percent of the world’s population living in developed countries consumed between 80 and 86 percent of non-renewable resources and 34 percent to 53 percent of food products [15]. The report emphasised the principle and imperative of sustainable development, which it defined as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” [16].

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), unanimously adopted in September 2000 by the United Nations Member States marked a new era for

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sustainability at the global level [17]. The MDGs were composed of eight goals, 21 targets, and 60 indicators, and encouraged action by a broad range of stakeholders in developed and developing countries, so as to address the multi-dimensional issue of extreme poverty by 2015. Several of the goals have been achieved, with notable decreases in poverty, mortality, and disease rates in the developing world; however, the MDGs have been criticised as vague and potentially leading to further inequality in an urban context [18,19].

By 2012, when the Rio+20 Earth Summit took place, we find ourselves facing an implementation issue, as communities develop sustainability plans without being able to mobilize citizens and apply a holistic approach to their actions [20]. At that Summit, the post-2015 UN Development Agenda was initiated and, in September 2015, 193 countries adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [21]: 17 goals and 169 concrete targets and indicators aiming to tackle poverty, climate change, and inequality in both developed and developing nations [17]. This agenda is grounded in a holistic view of sustainability and on the significance of the environmental dimension of sustainable development for all SDGs. The acknowledgement of the need for integrated action is also evident in the recent UNFCCC COP21 Paris Agreement to keep the global average temperature “well below 2^˝C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5^˝C above pre-industrial levels” [22].

2.2. The Role of Human Settlements

The increasing recognition of the role of human settlements as key components of both global challenges and global solutions follows naturally the exponential growth of urban population: from 30% of the global population in 1950 to 54% in 2014, and expected to reach 66% in 2050 [23], which would correspond to three times the total global population in 1900. The world’s urban areas, occupying 3%–4% of the world’s land surface, use 80% of its resources, and discharge most of the planet’s solid, liquid, and gaseous waste [24]. At the same time they become increasing vulnerable to climate change risks and, subsequently, face serious health challenges which are in turn linked to extended healthcare, infrastructure, and other costs burdening the economy and the environment [25].

However, communities today “constitute the arena where action is concretized; [...]

they are transformative; they [...] are hubs of peer-to-peer learning and knowledge sharing” [26,27]. As early as the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, ICLEI—Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) catalysed the adoption of Local Agenda 21, an initiative promoting a larger role for local authorities in sustainability planning [28]. Twenty years later, the Rio+20 conference encouraged sustainability assessment at the local community level [9]. The current global discussion on local SD solutions, as well as the recent adoption of UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 for “inclusive, safe,

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resilient, and sustainable” human settlements, again demonstrate the significance of urban sustainability [29]. Local governments are the laboratories for successful, monitorable, and transferable sustainability policies and practices, and quite possibly our best chance to deal with the environmental impact of human activity [17,30].

As governments were beginning to perceive the magnitude and ramifications of rapid urbanisation, the first UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat I), was convened in 1976 in Vancouver, Canada [28]. With Habitat III taking place 40 years later in October 2016 in Ecuador, the emphasis is on sustainable urban and territorial development which requires “(1) integrated policy formulation and implementation; (2) transformative renewal strategies; (3) environment planning and management; (4) planning compact and connected cities and regions; and (5) inclusive and participatory planning” [31].

One of the paradoxes related to urban sustainability is directly linked to the plethora of definitions for sustainable development and the various notions attached to it by researchers and practitioners. We want to highlight though that, despite the lack of definitional consensus, SCD, like SD, has three core elements on which researchers and practitioners generally agree: the environment (carrying capacity of the biosphere and resource management), the society (addressing equity, inclusion, cohesion, and poverty), and the economy (qualitative and quantitative economic performance) [9].

2.3. Theories and Factors Influencing Sustainable Community Development over Time 2.3.1. Ecological Modernisation

A key concept that has formed the basis of various environmental or development strategies as well as urban sustainability initiatives over the past two decades is ecological modernisation, which was coined in the 1980s as a response to the environmental degradation apparently due to the relentless pursuit of economic growth [28]. Through improvements in technology and design, energy and resource efficiency, and innovations in production, ecological modernisation primarily seeks to achieve congruence between the economic and the ecological dimensions of sustainability [28].

The ecological modernisation proponents believe that innovation and technology can provide sound solutions to environmental problems created by human activity and at the same time contribute to further growth by turning to a “cleaner” economy that internalizes the environmental risks [32]. This theory, reconciling resource efficiency and business growth, has also been called “a profitable sustainability” [33]

and inspired some Northern European countries to develop environmental policies for emissions abatement and eco-efficient production processes in the 1990s [28].

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The main debate on ecological modernisation relates to its scope, which is restricted to ecological and economic concerns, thus not incorporating important issues such as social equality, population trends, and inter- and intra-generational equity [28]. Especially in its early steps, ecological modernisation theory was primarily connected to mainstream theories promoting economic growth, such as capitalism and industrialism, and therefore subscribed to weak sustainability principles (see discussion below) [34].

There is also a tendency evident in ecological modernisation to rely on technological advance as the “magic formula” to cure or reverse environmental problems [35]. The persistence of efficiency solutions and technological innovations demonstrates the lack of an integrative approach to current global and local issues that require deeper social change [28,36].

2.3.2. Weak vs. Strong Sustainability

In economics, sustainability is defined in terms of economic growth through the neoclassical production function, a widely used way to calculate economic growth:

Q = Q (K, L), where Q is the quantity of economic output, K is capital (composed of human/manufactured capital or Kh and natural capital or Kn), and L is labour.

For neoclassical economists, production inputs (K and L) are substitutable. This however is not always the case: a sawmill (manufactured capital) and a forest (natural capital) are not necessarily substitutable, and some natural capital degradation or extinction is unquestionably irreversible [37].

Weak sustainability advocates assume that natural resources are super-abundant or that the elasticity of substitution between Kn and Kh is larger than 1 or that technological progress can increase the productivity of Kn at a faster pace than that of its depletion. They believe in perfect substitution between manufactured and natural capital of equal value, while the total capital stock remains constant [38,39].

Proponents of “weak sustainability” promote an anthropocentric worldview, that humans should dominate over nature and that economic growth (or human welfare) can continue indefinitely [34].

Moving gradually to stronger sustainability has been a subject in SD discussions for the past few decades, as ecological economists such as Herman Daly have argued that natural resources are not substitutable inputs since they are not infinite [6]. Strong sustainability holds that the various production inputs should exist independently [40,41]

and that in some cases environmental damage and resource depletion cannot be reversed [34]. For strong sustainability advocates, the existing stock of natural capital must be maintained (or even enhanced for the sake of future generations), because the functions it performs cannot be duplicated by manufactured capital.

Therefore, ecological sustainability is a prerequisite to economic development (this

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viewpoint prefers the term “development” over the term “growth”, as “development”

additionally incorporates social equity and qualitative improvement) [42].

A middle perspective considers only “critical natural capital” (i.e., ecosystem services providing life-support functions) as non-substitutable [43]; it may thus be possible to substitute between forms of Kn that are not “critical” (e.g., raw materials, waste assimilation, and amenities) or when there is a significant benefit from resource depletion or a large cost for conservation [37]. This however assumes complete information about all natural capital and its depletion impact, which is not the case.

Questions that constitute arenas for debate and research in this area relate to how each type of capital can be accurately measured (particularly how to assign monetary values to ecosystem services), whether GDP is a good measure of progress toward sustainability, what measures and indicators can effectively account for resource degradation, social equity, and non-market services, etc. Summing up, strong sustainability seems to be heading in the right direction for SCD: preserving adequate amounts of all natural assets (not constant, because population and other factors change as well) while avoiding terminal damage to critical natural assets, and consciously seeking to address key social issues [9].

2.3.3. Social Economy, Community Economic Development, Green Economy, and Self-Reliance

The social economy discourse emerged as a community response to negative impacts of social and economic restructuring, for instance through free trade agreements and privatisation [44]. Although a number of definitions exist resulting in significant debates, SE generally refers to activities by democratically controlled organisations and associations that integrate a social and economic mission, exist between the private and public sectors, and/or use the market to pursue explicit social objectives [44,45].

The social economy field has evolved rapidly, from simple forms of economic activity reflecting social or cultural values to social and green enterprise ventures. It is estimated that the social economy employs at least 2 million people in Canada and 11 million in the European Union [45]. Some SE initiatives have been criticised for operating inside the capitalist system and therefore by this system’s rules instead of trying to change them [14].

Community Economic Development (CED), often considered as a predecessor of the social economy, refers to bottom-up initiatives and participatory processes in which economic activities that meet social needs and environmental well-being are developed [44,45]. Social economy and CED are not completely synonymous;

CED is locally focused and emphasizes collective bottom-up action, whereas SE is not necessarily geographically focused and builds on both collective action and individual entrepreneurship [45]. Although social economy and CED mostly

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combine social and economic aspects of sustainability, they can considerably contribute to local sustainability when converged with SCD, which integrates the environmental dimension along with the other two [44].

Two more concepts are worth briefly mentioning here, as they relate to the social economy and CED discussion: green economy and self-reliance or eco-localism.

The Rio+20 process popularised the “green economy”, which brings environmental considerations into the social economy and uses the latter to advance equity concerns within sustainability. Related to the debate on weak and strong sustainability, this approach moves along a spectrum between initiatives that are criticised for not addressing societal transformation and those that prioritize equity and social needs over profit maximisation. According to Connelly et al. [14], “a critical point of differentiation is whether social economy/enterprise activities are able to generate their own capital, rather than relying on an ongoing subsidy from the derivatives of the mainstream economy and the politics of redistribution”.

Eco-localism integrates social, economic, and environmental sustainability, by focusing on the creation of self-reliant economies at the local level [46]. Through self-reliance initiatives, diversification of local economies is encouraged so that communities meet their needs, foster equity and inclusion, manage energy and waste more efficiently, and become more aware of the environmental and social impacts of economic activities [9]. This approach recognizes that there may be limits to the natural and human capital within and around a given local community, and that the road to self-reliance requires collective agreement, capacity building, and decision-making based on the integrated concept of sustainable community development [46].

2.3.4. Resource Efficiency, Circular Economy, and Urban Metabolism

A further shift in sustainability thinking occurred with key research papers such as that by von Weizsäcker et al. [46], which states that an 80% increase in resource productivity could be achieved through the use of efficient design, technology, and management. Concepts like eco-efficiency, circular economy, and turning waste into resources have resulted in “green” economic and business strategies, called “resource efficient”; businesses have started to adopt such concepts and to use efficient design, technology, and management [47].

Meanwhile, the concepts of urban metabolism and circular economy build upon the perception of a city as an ecosystem in which energy and material are the inputs and wastes are the outputs [48]. Urban metabolism based on a circular economy has been propagated mostly by McKinsey and Company [49] and the World Future Council [24,50]. Studies using urban metabolism principles and metrics have shown the ever-increasing urban demand for natural resources [51] and this finding has formed the rationale for various sustainability and resource efficiency

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initiatives worldwide [52]. Overall, the above demonstrate an advancement in the environmental-economic dimension of sustainability, by moving from the effort to reduce the global impact of human activity on the environment to the potential of resource efficiency and regeneration, and self-reliance [53].

2.3.5. The “Social” and “Just” Aspects of Sustainability

Despite the existence of various definitions and interpretations of SD and SCD, in most cases the triple bottom line is prominent. From municipal sustainability plans to corporate sustainability reporting, they usually review the environmental, economic, and social dimensions of an activity or initiative. However, they are rarely reviewed with equal attention; the environmental and economic aspects of sustainability are generally more visible than the social aspect.

Social capital can encompass characteristics such as social responsibility, trust, shared knowledge, and norms (cognitive social capital), as well as networks, structures, and relations within and beyond a community (bonding and bridging social capital) [9,37]. It is potentially a public good, usually under-provided by private agents, and exists only when combined with trust, credibility, and reciprocity.

In contrast with natural capital, social capital will not be depleted if it is increasingly being used, but will deplete very quickly if it is not used.

Some researchers consider that sustainability is an advancement of the environmental justice movement which emerged in the 1980s through the convergence of social and environmental activism [54,55]. The concept of environmental justice, which could be loosely defined as the right to clean and safe environment for all (or even the fair distribution of the social, cultural, and health impacts of environmental degradation), is critical for the achievement of SD and SCD goals.

Agyeman, Bullard, & Evans [54] explain that the relationship between environmental degradation and social capital, as described above, has three main characteristics: (1) the two aspects are progressing in parallel, in that—at any jurisdictional or geographical level—“human inequality is bad for environmental quality”; (2) environmental problems are incommensurately afflicting the poorest societal groups; and (3) both aspects need to be treated as parts of the holistic approach which constitutes the basis of sustainable development.

As Agyeman indicates [56], even though environmental sustainability is fundamental, the aspects of social equity and welfare have to be integrated with the environmental and economic aspects. He calls this connection “environmental quality-human equality” for present and future generations. Social sustainability then became stronger as researchers (e.g., [56,57]) and citizen movements demanded the inclusion of social concerns, such as intra-generational equity, into any SD discussion.

The social dimension of SD has thus been introduced in the literature through

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concepts such as “environmental justice” [54], “just sustainability” [56] and “shared ethical framework” [58].

2.3.6. Resilience

Although an old concept for engineering, psychology, and disaster management, resilience with regards to ecological and socio-ecological systems was first introduced by the renowned natural scientist C.S. Holling in 1973. A resilient system is characterised by its dynamic nature, multiple stable states, uncertainty, and persistence to exist—even if altered—in face of gradual or rapid change [9,47]. An inclusive definition for resilience is “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks” [59].

Both in the literature and in practice, sustainability and resilience seem to overlap in that they share some principles and goals. The theme of resilience in the context of cities has proven to be very popular in urban planning. Although there are a variety of definitions for and understandings of resilience in social sciences [60], Meerow et al. (2016) concluded that urban resilience has not been comprehensively defined yet, as such a venture requires that resilience thinking takes into account the complexity and dynamics of urban systems. They go on to define urban resilience as “the ability of an urban system—and all its constituent socio-ecological and socio-technical networks across temporal and spatial scales—to maintain or rapidly return to desired functions in the face of a disturbance, to adapt to change, and to quickly transform systems that limit current or future adaptive capacity” [61].

There is also another aspect of resilience that “concerns the capacity for renewal, re-organisation and development, which has been less in focus but is essential for the sustainability discourse...in a resilient social-ecological system, disturbance has the potential to create opportunity for doing new things, for innovation and for development” [62]. Even though adopting strategies for resilience is only a part of SCD policy-making, a city may be resilient not only with regards to a natural disaster, but also when facing economic or social turbulence. It is in this respect that resilience supports the normative nature of sustainability by recognizing that a sustainable society is one that is actively seeking to become a better society [9].

Resilience in urban planning is a key driving principle behind the “Transition Town initiative” that emerged in 2006 in the United Kingdom, in response to rising concerns about climate change and peak oil [63]. By emphasizing the need for local action, the “Transition Towns” movement encourages communities to take steps to reduce carbon emissions, prepare for an economy post-peak oil, and ultimately transition to more sustainable socio-technical systems [9]. Towns across the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, and many more countries are using this

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framework to plan for sustainability; as of December 2015, there were 479 transition initiatives underway [64].

2.3.7. The Ecological Footprint

A great influencer of the sustainability assessment literature is the ecological footprint developed by Wackernagel and Rees, which estimates the land area and related natural capital required by any human activity, i.e., the land occupied by buildings or infrastructure and the land needed to produce food and production inputs and to assimilate pollutants [65]. The ecological footprint can offer a meaningful single measure of all global ecological impacts of human activities, at household, municipal, national or global levels. The degree to which the footprint of human activities exceeds the total productive area is a measure of unsustainability [9].

The ecological footprint tool compares human demand for resources to the renewable resources available for consumption, i.e., to the Earth’s biocapacity. It estimates the global hectares (gha) necessary for human demand by adding up all of the area required to provide these renewable resources, the area of built infrastructure, and the area needed to absorb waste [66]. In 2011, the Earth’s biocapacity was estimated at approximately 12 billion hectares which, if divided by the total population that year (~7 billion), gives 1.72 gha per capita [67]. Advanced technology has expanded the Earth’s biocapacity by approximately 13% in the last 50 years, but during the same time the global population increased by around 130%, thus reducing the available biocapacity and raising the ecological footprint per person [68]. With the global human population projected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050 and almost 11 billion by 2100 [69], the amount of biocapacity available per capita will further decline.

In the 1970s, humanity entered a state known as “ecological overshoot” [67]: our annual demand for ecological resources has ever since been greater than what the planet can regenerate in a given year. When our consumption exceeds the ecosystem limits, we are drawing down our natural capital and entering a state of overshoot; in ecological footprint terms, we are then appropriating carrying capacity from “distant elsewheres” [65]. Earth Overshoot Day, calculated by Global Footprint Network, an international think tank focused on helping the human economy operate within Earth’s ecological limits, is determined for a given year according to the number of days of that year that Earth’s biocapacity suffices to provide for humanity’s Ecological Footprint; the remainder of the year corresponds to the global overshoot [68].

While ecological footprints have commonly been used on a country scale, they can also be calculated and applied on a local scale. Human communities demand a high input of resources: the more populous the city and the richer its inhabitants, the larger its ecological footprint is likely to be. Although some developed world communities may appear to be sustainable, analysis of their ecological footprint

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shows that they appropriate carrying capacity not only from their own rural and resource regions, but also from “distant elsewheres” [9]. Where there is availability of reliable local data, the ecological footprint of a community is based on the bottom-up “component” method which reflects the consumption patterns of the local population [51]. For instance, the City of Vancouver, Canada, used this method to assess options for achieving their Greenest City 2020 goals; the action plan includes a short-term goal to achieve a 33% reduction in the City’s ecological footprint by 2020 and a longer-term goal to achieve a 75% reduction by 2050 [70]. A related analysis of Metro Vancouver calculated its total ecological footprint in 2006 as an area around 36 times larger than the metropolitan region itself, and thus showed how far the City of Vancouver still is from the “one-planet living” principle included in its Greenest City Action Plan [51].

The ecological footprint analysis has been widely accepted for its strong scientific foundations and for being directly relevant to everyday life and consumption patterns; it has also been criticised for conceptual and methodological weaknesses, as well as for policy-related ineffectiveness [66]. In any case, this approach confirms that we need to minimize consumption of essential natural capital [66]. The question is how to achieve this in the face of contemporary challenges while maintaining or improving quality of life.

2.3.8. Incorporating Public Health Concerns

Public health is another field that influences sustainability theory, planning, and implementation, as a sustainable community is also a healthy community, reflecting the health of its citizens. A century ago, municipalities were instrumental in improving public health by preventing the spread of disease, then viewed as the main challenge for local government. However, health is influenced by the physical and social environments in which we live and work as well as by interventions from the healthcare system [9].

Since the mid-1980s, municipal governments in Europe and North America have adopted a broader conception of public health. The World Health Organisation recognizes that a healthy community respects the principles of participation, partnership, empowerment, and equity, and promotes comprehensive strategies for a health-supportive environment, a good quality of life, and sustainable community development [71]. The fundamental conditions and resources (social determinants) for health are peace, adequate shelter, education, food, income, a stable ecosystem, sustainable resources, social justice, and equity. Thus, a healthy community not only provides adequate housing that is affordable, secure, and fosters a sense of pride and place—it goes beyond housing to improve citizen health, in an integrated, sustainability-inspired sense.

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3. Urban Sustainability Implementation and Assessment Hurdles

3.1. Urban Sustainability Planning and Implementation Gap

In the past three decades, recognition of global and local problems, increase of available data, expertise, and technology, and acknowledgement of the need to take action have led to the development and adoption of numerous urban sustainability plans around the world [20]. Similarly, an increase in the number of urban sustainability networks, during the same period, denotes the desire of local governments to cooperate, exchange knowledge and best practices, and be part of a global SD movement [72].

By signing the Aalborg Charter at the 1st European Conference of Sustainable Cities and Towns, organised by ICLEI in 1994 in the aftermath of the Rio Earth Summit, hundreds of local governments have committed to adopting and implementing Local Agenda 21 (LA21) in the form of their own sustainability action plans integrating participatory processes. LA21s promote multi-stakeholder engagement, ecosystem protection, sustainable urban planning, an holistic sustainability viewpoint, participatory decision-making, and establishment of a monitoring framework [28,73]. In 2002, ICLEI reported that more than 6400 communities around the world had committed to the Local Agenda 21 process by that time [74]; 10 years later, however, less than half of them had actively moved beyond the planning stage [20].

As ICLEI’s researchers observe [20], municipalities around the world do not exclusively use the LA21 framework; their plans may be called “sustainable development plans”, “sustainability action plans”, “local sustainability strategies”,

“integrated development programmes”, etc. For instance, around 25% of Canadian communities have adopted Sustainable Community Plans (SCPs) which encompass economic, ecological, and social goals [30], although not all have put implementation strategies in place due to several reasons: capacity-expertise deficit, inability to comprehend and work with the interdisciplinary nature of sustainability, funding shortage, lack of political will, external circumstances, etc. [75]. This gap between planning and implementation has not been without consequences; lost opportunities to act on sustainability, lack of credibility, and increased public scepticism [9,30].

3.2. Issues in Assessing Healthy and Sustainable Communities

The assessment of plans for healthy and sustainable communities is considered an effective tool that follows implementation in order to gauge their success and measure performance in ecological, social, and economic terms [9]. Successful monitoring and assessment of healthy and sustainable communities entails tackling issues such as stakeholder engagement, place-specific challenges, and agreeing on shared theoretical grounds and practical vision [9]. Bond, Morrison-Saunders,

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and Howitt [76] identified the main debates currently influencing sustainability assessment: (1) the variety of definitions and interpretations of SD by stakeholders;

(2) the importance of context for policy actors to agree upon the meaning, implementation, and assessment of SCD in their own case; (3) the relevance of timescales on which SCD plans are built and of impacts that go beyond political boundaries; (4) the dilemma between a reductionist (few indicators covering a broad range of topics) or a holistic approach (many indicators for comprehensive understanding); and (5) the prioritisation of processes or outcomes or both.

Developing an SCD assessment framework needs to be led by a set of guiding principles such as these: livelihood sufficiency and opportunity, intragenerational and intergenerational equity, precaution and adaptation, and resource maintenance and efficiency [77]. Certainly there is not one set of indicators that is perfect for every policy or project, especially given the complex nature of systems and sub-systems in a city [78]. However at least some criteria need to be met so that indicators can be an effective decision-making tool: relevant and meaningful, measurable and feasible, sufficient, timely and consistent, scale appropriate, participatory, and systemic and flexible/modifying [76,78–80].

SCD assessment contains various challenges and debates, most of which have been described above. At the same time, urban sustainability frameworks constitute a rapidly growing arena worldwide, as a multitude of agendas emerged in the past two decades: cities that are “sustainable”, “green”, “liveable”, “smart”, “resilient”,

“eco”, “low carbon”, “ubiquitous”, etc. [32]. The genesis and evolution of most of these agendas seems to have been influenced by the major underpinnings of SD/SCD, ecological modernisation, and the emerging concept of regenerative development or regenerative sustainability [32].

A study of the related literature [32] showed that “sustainable city” is the most frequently mentioned and centrally placed agenda, followed by terms such as “smart city”, “digital city”, “eco city” and “green city”. Smart city and digital city reflect a weak sustainability approach, because the use of technology is prominent as the obvious way to increase productivity, well-being and wealth; whereas the green or eco-city have gained momentum partly because of the increased awareness of climate change challenges. Amidst this multitude of agendas, it is clear that “sustainable city” has longer history, stronger policy associations, and definitely broader scope, i.e., the triple bottom line notion of sustainability. Contrary to perceptions that are popular among decision-makers, this study indicates that these urban sustainability terms should not be used interchangeably, because, although intertwined, they are grounded on various—not necessarily compatible—theoretical premises [32].

Additionally, in the recent years, public health professionals and activists have developed and promoted a “healthy cities” agenda aiming to integrate health concerns in community planning and development. The objective is to reach

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improved health outcomes and reduced health care costs through enhanced urban design [49]. Health concerns have also been occasionally incorporated into other urban agendas such as eco-cities, low carbon cities, and resilient cities, for obvious reasons: efforts to reverse environmental degradation, maintain ecological integrity, or sustain a status quo in face of climate or other challenges impact human health directly or indirectly [9,32].

The Leverhulme International Research Network “Tomorrow’s City Today: An International Comparison of Eco-City Frameworks” looked closely at the various existing frameworks developed to assess urban sustainability. In the Network’s final report, 43 internationally visible and replicable frameworks are identified and studied; most frameworks (34) have been launched since 2008 and that, contrary to what would be expected, only eight of them have been designed and/or promoted by governmental organisations [81]. The analysis suggests that the vast majority of SCD assessment frameworks fall under one of three broad categories in terms of purpose and usability in decision-making: (1) performance assessment; (2) certification, accreditation or endorsement; and (3) acting as a “planning toolkit” [81].

Joss et al. [81] observe that the 43 frameworks studied by the Leverhulme Network range from focused and minimal to broad and comprehensive sets of indicators (reductionism versus holism) and this often relates to the wide variations noticed in defining and interpreting urban sustainability. The question of process versus outcomes is also tackled in this report, but in conjunction with another dilemma, that of standardisation versus contextualisation. Standardizing sustainability assessment offers advantages such as common language, however urban sustainability is context-specific by nature; keeping this last point in mind may be the key to developing comprehensive frameworks that honour decision-making and participatory process while achieving set sustainability goals. At the intersection of standardisation and contextualisation, it may be helpful to consider indicator frameworks as “boundary objects”, i.e., tools that can help operationalize SD and SCD across different policy boundaries [82].

The contextual character of SCD is linked to other issues discussed in the sustainability assessment literature today: (1) the difficulty in deciding the scope of a framework due to questions of spatial and jurisdictional boundaries; (2) the complexity in developing or using replicable and comparable frameworks [81];

and (3) the concerns related to accessible, timely, and reliable data. Standardised, out-of-the-box frameworks are usually excessively data-driven and therefore not always scalable and relevant to particular places, since factors related to social values and visions, community development, and culture may disconnect data from reality [83].

The main finding to emerge from the current research on SCD performance assessment is that the field is not yet fully developed. While there are many

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frameworks in existence, their development appears to be taking place in a haphazard, siloed manner. Most of these frameworks—and the decision-making processes that result from them—fail to acknowledge the importance of several aspects of sustainability: the systemic nature of cities [33], the strong need for integration of human and environmental health interests [84], the “globalizing world” in which resources are produced and consumed in different regions [85], the need for emphasis on social inclusion, equity, constructive societal mobilisation, and security [48]. These concerns are now manifested in the Sustainable Development Goals as well as the demand for strong sustainability approaches and a common language between sustainability researchers and practitioners and among policy-makers themselves [86]. It is evident, then, that sustainability frameworks need to be enhanced and possibly aggregated [81,87] so as to promote healthy community capital management and regeneration.

3.3. The Community Capital Framework

The Community Capital framework [9] and the tools that have been developed to operationalize it constitute an inspiration for our research in exploring the advancement of SCD planning and assessment. We use the term “Community Capital” (Figure 1) to include natural, physical, economic, human, social, and cultural forms of capital.

Soc. Sci. 2016, 5, 28 12 of 20

Figure 1. Community Capital: A Framework for Sustainable Community Development. Sustainable development requires mobilizing citizens and their governments to strengthen all forms of community capital. Community mobilisation is necessary to coordinate, balance and catalyze community capital. Source: [9].

The Community Capital Tool (CCT) is an SCD assessment tool built upon the Community Capital framework, and is the product of collaboration between the Centre for Sustainable Community Development at Simon Fraser University in Canada, with Telos, Brabant Center for Sustainable Development, Tilburg University, Netherlands. The six capital accounts of the CCT are broken down into a set of smaller stocks and requirements used to measure capital capacity and sustainability progress. The stocks are subsystems that influence the state and development of each capital account and can be considered as assets. These stocks are, for the most part, universal and were chosen based on their ability to accurately and efficiently represent the health of the capital they represent. Within each stock is a set of requirements that are chosen by the community to more closely represent the local needs and priorities of the community or of the specific initiative being measured. Lastly, each requirement is measured by one or more indicators. Indicators are specific, measurable entities (such as GHG emissions, unemployment rates, etc.) that “indicate” the status of each requirement. They are selected based on the ease (and cost) of their data collection, their correlation to the requirement being measured, and the reliability and integrity of their data sources.

The CCT then rolls up the final results into a graphical reporting package that reports on the health of each capital account and each of their constituent stocks. Community leaders, planners, and citizens can use this information to compare the current sustainability status of their community with past results, and with other, comparable communities. The CCT was designed based on strong sustainability principles. It focuses on the issues specific to each individual community, but does so in a way that recognizes each community’s regional and global impact on the environment and on society at large. The CCT is also designed to incorporate the democratic input of citizens in terms of values and priorities, and provides planners and decision-makers with a tool that helps them ensure that these values and priorities are reflected in their policy decisions [9].

Of course, the Community Capital Framework and Tool is only one of many frameworks and tools that have been developed to help plan for and assess sustainability; some present conceptual similarities [81] but most come from a variety of theoretical backgrounds [88], while almost all face practical challenges and limitations, as discussed in the previous section. Examples of other significant sustainability assessment frameworks include STAR Community Index, BREEAM Communities, One Planet Communities, the Foundation for Sustainable Area Development method, the Canadian Index of Wellbeing, and Vancouver Foundation Vital Signs.

Figure 1. Community Capital: A Framework for Sustainable Community Development.

Sustainable development requires mobilizing citizens and their governments to strengthen all forms of community capital. Community mobilisation is necessary to coordinate, balance and catalyze community capital. Source: [9].

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Societal Well-Being

Reinventing Healthy Communities:

Implications for Individual and